1. Field of Inventions
The inventions relate to cleaning deposition pins, and, more specifically, cleaning deposition pins while minimizing cross-contamination between the pins and minimizing the volume of cleaning fluid required.
2. Description of Related Art
Systems and method are known for cleaning implements used for the deposition of fluid, semi-fluid or solid samples of biological or chemical materials, for example in microarray spotting, plate-to-plate transfer, or colony picking equipment. Examples of such implements are solid pins, quill-type pins, capillary tubes, or ink jet tubes. For simplicity, all of these implements will be referred to as pins.
Washing of deposition pins can be achieved through several mechanisms. All pins being used could be lowered into a bath of cleaning solution and agitated, either by agitation of the fluid or by motion of the pins themselves. Agitation could be implemented by creating a moving fluid flow, a re-circulating fluid flow, or sonication.
In a single common bath, material removed from one pin could be re-deposited on and contaminate adjacent pins. This contamination can be mitigated by using large bath volumes or by incorporating a fluid flow away from the pin surfaces to be cleaned. However, in such a system, the volume of cleaning fluid needed to maintain a supply of uncontaminated fluid at the cleaning surfaces can be excessive, with the added complications of storage or transportation of fresh fluid or waste fluid in the system.
High frequency coupling of energy (sonication, ultrasonics, megasonics, etc.) to aid the cleaning process can be implemented, but adds cost and complexity to implement the drive elements and proper mechanical design to couple the energy on all of the targeted surfaces to be cleaned.